Record and playback RF signals from a 27 Mhz RF based remote?

Hello all,

Pardon a question from an electronics ultra-novice. Please note that when I talk about a PC, I mean a Windows 2000 based platform.

I have several robots that use consumer IR for their remote controls. I was able to find a USB device called the UIRT that can record (learn) infrared signals and play them back; so I can now control those IR based robots from an open source computer program I wrote.

I recently bought an animatronic puppet that has a remote control that uses RF on a 27 Mhz carrier to transmit movement commands to the puppet. I want to have the same capability with the new puppet and it's RF based remote control, that I do currently with IR based robots.

INPUT SIDE: What would be the easiest way to capture (record) the RF signals from the remote and get them into a format that I can store on my computer? Is there a known PC compatible A/D device I can buy that does this already? If not, are there components that are close to what I need that will give me a jumpstart on building something?

OUTPUT SIDE: Once I have a method for capturing and storing the RF signals for each puppet movement, how can I "play them back"? If it's a standard RF transmission situation, what's a convenient PC compatible device that will allow me to play back (transmit) the RF signal as needed?

I'm hoping of course for something that has actual Windows compatible drivers and a good solid manual with examples. If not, I'll take what I can get.

Any suggestions, or better yet, links to vendor sites and the model name of the device(s)?

Here's a picture of the controller:

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Using a PLC like this PC controllable gate is useless so wiring a PLC to the remote is not doable. The reason is because for some really crazy reason they decided to use toggle switches to split the functionality of the various motors.

For example, the right joystick controller on the controller will either control the eyes or the head position and they are mutually exclusive. So even if I wired up the remote control from a PLC like this one:

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I couldn't control the eyes and the head at the same time in a smooth manner because of the toggle switch!

So I'd like to be able to capture the remote control signals and then transmit them back using PC compatible gear. Although I am an electronics novice, I can solder and I do have assembler level programming experience if needed. I've been told that a Windows PC won't be able to keep up with A/D sampling speeds necessary to sample a

27 Mhz waveform, so I do have a box running SuSE 9.1 if need be. But I am curious, wouldn't a decent A/D card from one of the Scientific Devices distributors be able to do the heavy lifting, even on a Windows box?

Thanks.

Hello Robert,

I see that you still don't get that you _can_not_ capture the RF as you have asked over and over in comp.dsp.

Now that I see that you have an Model Radio Contol transmitter, it may be a little easier to find a solution.

Any RC transmitter is a single RF stream that is time multiplexed with all the control signals on one RF signal.

If you google for RC transmitters you will find lots of sites that will explain how this works.

Please forget trying to capture the 27Mhz signal (as has been repeated over and over)

Try to understand how the transmitter/receiver pair work.

The simple answer to your problem is "yes, this can be done", however, not the way you think it can be done.

I as many here have done computer controlled transmitters before.

But the transmitter is left alone, the control signals that are input to the transmitter can come from the computer.

I hope you will find that path to enlightenment.

donald

thei may help explain the transmitted signal:

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